


Effect and Cause

by aWasteLandStudent



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Eye Trauma, F/F, Psychological Torture, Time Travel, Torture, When Lena Finds Out What Happened She's Gonna Be Pissed, surgery without anesthesia, time traveling sucks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-01 18:38:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11492322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aWasteLandStudent/pseuds/aWasteLandStudent
Summary: Tracer is sent on a mission to investigate an anomaly that could be the wreckage of the Slipstream and Talon may have gotten their hands on it.When she arrives she finds nothing but a destroyed base question is what happened.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! This my first attempt at a fanfic! Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this and I hope you enjoy the story!

**Watch point Gibraltar: 1938 hours**

“Winston” came a slightly robotic voice over an intercom.

Winston busy looking over some files of the latest mission report over the omnic uprising taking place in london. He took a few more seconds to read the files before replying. “What is it Athena?”

“Our satellites have picked up an anomaly on Rebirth Island in the Black Sea”

“What kind of anomaly, Athena?” Winston still too engrossed in the files to look up at the nearby computer screen.

“Initial scans report that the anomaly has similar readings to when the teleportation matrix malfunctioned on the Slipstream possibly causing rifts in time.”

With that Winston paused for a moment, finally setting down the files and looking at the nearby screen, scanning over all the information Athena had prepared for him. Winston carefully looked over every detail presented to him. “Curious...Could it be the wreckage of the slipstream that’s causing the anomaly?”

“Most likely, however the location of the anomaly could be cause for concern.”

“Why is that, Athena?

“Rebirth Island was a bioresearch and weapons development base for the former Soviet Union during in the mid 19th century. It was abandoned during the mid 1990s due to leaks of deadly chemicals. Though cleaning projects in the early 20th century from world governments eventually cleared the island of deadly chemicals, the base remained abandoned.”

“Your thinking someone resettled the base and is researching the wreckage of the Slipstream?”

“Correct.”

Winston took a moment to readjust his glasses and ponder over the new information given to him. “We need to get a team ready to investigate this. It could be Talon, and we don’t want them getting their hands on what’s left of the Slipstream any more than they already have.” He was already in the process of assembling a team before Athena broke his concentration.

“Winston… if this anomaly is same as what happened with Agent Oxton, the same adverse effects could happen to the team sent over to investigate.”

Pausing a moment to think this over, he replied “....We have to do something Athena, we can’t just let Talon do what they please with the technology onboard the slipstream.”

“Suggestion: Send Agent Oxton on a recon mission to investigate.”

* * *

 

 

**Rebirth Island: 1523 Hours**

“Remind me why I’m here Again, Winston”

“You are there to investigate an anomaly and possible Talon base, and recover any intel you can as to what they are doing there.”

“Riiigggghhhttt.” Lena said extending the word out unnessarily as she looked around the ruined buildings. The wildlife and surrounding forest was slowly reclaiming what was left of the old base long forgotten. Shattered windows, rusting and grown over defence and service droids, and few burnt out vehicles every which way she looked.

Walking through the decaying base “Winston are you sure there was somethin here luv, I’ve been walkin around and only seen a few stray animals.”

“There's something there Lena. I’m sure of it. Just hold onto that data recorder I gave you and i’m sure you’ll be fine.Now I have a few things I need to attend to, but Athena will be with you over the coms to assist you.”

With that, Lena let out a defeated sigh. She walked a bit more not finding much of anything she hadn’t already seen. Making her way to the central part of the base Lena decide to enter what appeared to be the main building of the base. “Athena, is there really somethin here luv or am I just on a wild-goose chase. I gotta girl waitin for me back home ya know.” entering what appeared to be a conference room.

“I am aware of your relationship status Agent Oxton, but this is a very important mission”

“Walkin through abandoned buildings looking for something we’re not really sure is even here sure is a top priority mission.”She was getting restless if the sarcasm in her voice was any indication. Looking around the room she found what appeared to be old hand held device. Crouching down to pick up the device.

“I might be able to extract the data from the device if you connect it to the data recorder”

“Really?” a hint of excitement in her voice. “Maybe I can Finally find out what Actually happened to this place.”

Connecting the two devices Lena waited for Athana to extract the data “Most of what’s on this device is too decayed to be of any uses however I was able to extract an audio log that may be useful”

“Play it”

_“....oll sector is keeping overwatch busy in London. This is giving us the time we need to work on the two priority proje…’_

_‘Sir! We have a security breach in the research department!’_

_‘If the test subject still won’t comply keep her in the anechoic chamber.’_

_‘No, Sir it’s a separate intruder, were not sure how they infiltrated the base undetected, reports are saying the intruder is moving around erratically. Like nothing we’ve ever seen before’_

_‘Well then send the security team to deal with them!’_

_‘We have Sir, the two teams we sent...they were wiped out’_

_‘...How many intruders…’_

_‘Just one Sir’”_

“That's all I was able to extract from the audio log Agent Oxton.” Lena continued to stare the device in her hand before answering. Contemplating what she just heard from the audio log.

“Is there anything else useful on this thing?”

“I am detecting traces of my own data on the former network this device was connected too.”

“What does that mean?”

“Unknown”

“Alright? Well let’s move on then” Lena stood up casually tossing the device to the side before making her way out of the room. Moving deeper into what's left of the facility she made her way into another wing of of the large building.

“I’m picking up a weak reading of the anomaly detected earlier nearby.”

“Where?”

“In the adjacent room”

Lena making her way through to the room having to navigate some rubble to make it in side. Entered what was left of what appeared to be a small laboratory with ruined devices and complicated equipment she could only guess what their uses were for. Looking around a little longer “Well I don’t see much in here, what am I lookin for Athena?”

“The signal is coming from the back of the room. From the strength of the signal it may be buried under rubble.”

“Right” making her way to the back she found a pile of rubble and started clearing it out of her way. She paused for a moment when she noticed a faint blue light coming from the rubble and not her accelerator. Moving the last pieces of rubble out of the way, she hesitated as she looked down at the metallic device responsible for all that’s happened to her.

“The Slipstreams teleportation matrix”

“Correct.”

“What’s it doin here?”

“This facility was most likely researching what was left of the Slipstream.”

After taking a few moments to collect herself she reached down to the device. Upon picking it up it started to come to life with a quiet hum slowly getting louder and Lena felt an all too familiar unpleasant feeling in her stomach as she noticed the world around her start to blur and fade out. Lena closed her eyes as she was gripped with a sudden fear. She felt heavy, her hands, her legs, her heart even the blood running through her veins felt heavy. Her organs felt like they were being compressed down toward her legs.

Her body reacted before she knew what was going on and took a deep breath. She clenched the muscles in her legs and relaxed her shoulders as her training took over. Breath out, clench, breath in, clench, breath out. All second nature to her.

It was getting to the point where the weight was starting to feel too much. Then just as quickly as it left the world started to fade back in and the heavy weight on her body let up just as fast.

Lena opened her eyes and took one last deep breath and tried to shake the sudden wave of nausea she was experiencing. She lost. Falling over onto her hands and knees she purged the contents of her stomach onto the floor.Her stomach emptied she wiped away the bile that stained her lips with the back of her hand “Athena...What… The bloody…. hell just happened..” coughing between her words.

“An increase in G-forces. You experienced a sudden increase of 9 Gs for 8 seconds. The fact that you remained conscious especially with without a G-suit is likely due to your combat training as a pilot”

“Damn only 8 seconds, that felt like an eternity, I was afraid I was gonna disappear again.” Lena internally said to herself. Finally collecting herself enough to sit up and rest on her knees Lena looked at the wall in front of her. It wasn’t as it should be. The wall was suddenly an off-white color and clean. Not the dirty old and decaying mess it was just a few seconds ago.

Taking a look around the Laboratory was completely different from what it was a moment ago. Gone were the dirty rubble laden floors and caved in roof. The Gadgets and Machinery were all new almost factory new and the place smelled sterile.

Lena stood up from where she was, seeing no one else in the pristine room. “It appears the Teleportation Matrix activated when you interacted with it teleporting us to a different point in time.”

“Well that's just lovely isn’t it? When did it teleport us then?”

“Unknown”

“Great so i’m stuck in some unknown time period then?” Lena said as calmly as she could. This wasn’t part of the plan. Her mission was to investigate and gather intel nowhere did it say to time travel.

“Perhaps the nearby terminal can yield some answers.”

Lena hastily made her way over to the terminal and connected Athena. “Right let me know what you find Athena” Lena said as she stepped back and made her way towards the door.

“This facility is a research and development base on various projects including the research of the possibility of the weaponization of the slipstreams teleportation matrix.”

“Okay, that explains what it’s doing here. Anything else?”

“it appears they are also in the process of making a ‘living weapon’ by means of indoctrination and physiological modifications on a subject.”

Lena checking the hallway to make sure no one was on their way into the room she was currently hiding in. She could see people in lab coats moving from one place to another and some service droids either cleaning or moving supplies around. “That doesn’t sound pleasant.” Fortunately It didn’t seem as if anyone was interested in walking into her room at the moment. Making her way back into the terminal after making sure the coast is clear to see what Athena had found.

“Correct it also appears that the test subject is…”

Lenas face turning ghost white as she looks at a camera feed showing a familiar figure sitting on the floor in a peculiarly padded room pulling her knees to her chest “Amie…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my personal friends who helped beta read this story!  
> A Big Thank you to Mizu! Without your words of encouragement this story would probably never have been published!  
> And a Thank you to You the Readers for making it this far! I hope You enjoyed the story! 
> 
> Please comment and review. Let me know what you think and how can I improve!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, were back right where we left off. The French in this chapter is brought to you by Google Translate and is most likely wrong! The translations of what its supposed to be is at the end. This chapter will make sure we earned the Mature rating and the Torture tag and I added a few more tags. I hope you guys make it to the end and if you do I'm sorry if it was to much!  
> Enjoy

Lena could feel her gloves straining at the seams as she clenched her fists. Looking at the camera feed of the seemingly broken girl sitting on the floor. “What's Amie doing here? What are they doing to her?” she could barely contain the rage in her voice.

“She is the test subject of the ‘Living weapon’ program codenamed ‘Project Widow’. They currently have her held in an Anechoic Chamber as punishment for refusing to comply with experiments they wish to run on her.”

“Isn’t an Anechoic Chamber one of those quiet rooms? So they’re giving her some peace and quiet?”

“This Anechoic Chamber is at -21 decibels. -23 decibels is the absolute quietest physically possible on Earth. In this chamber, she can hear her own organs as they function, the blood flow through her veins, she most likely can hear the slight ringing human ears create. If an individual spends too much time in the chamber it can become quite disorientating and they’ll start to hallucinate. The experience is very uncomfortable for a human beings especially if the subject is in total darkness.”

The reality of Amélie’s situation started to sink in, as Lena realized the chamber was a form of psychological torture. “How long have they kept her in there?”

“She has been kept in the chamber for 13 hours. The previous recorded record was 45 minutes”

Lena took several deep breaths as she tried to calm herself from rage that was building up inside her.

“Where are they keeping her?! I have to get her out here!”

“I am attempting to gather information on her whereabouts as we speak. Breaking through the security systems is taking longer than expected.”

Lena took a moment think about her options. She could just run around the building till she found her, but this complex was huge and she wasn’t even sure if she was on the same floor or even the same building. She decided to busy herself by going through the files that were already brought up on “Project Widow”.

She mostly glanced over the files as most were of the idea behind the project and plans for how to enact it. She opened another file and this one had a video file attached it simply titled  
“Enucleation” without much thought she opened the video file before asking “What’s Enucleation mean?”

“Enucleation is the sur...” She could hear Athena in the background, but she wasn’t paying attention to what she was saying. All her focus was now on the video in front of her. The camera currently in a top down view was focused on a patient on an operating table. The patient was restrained to the table at every possible point. They had restraints on their ankles, across their knees and thighs, hands all the way up their chest. Even their head and neck we secured completely immobilizing the patient. There was also the constant beeping of a heart monitor working in the background.

At the moment Lena was only paying attention to who was on the operating table. “Amélie” Lena whispered under her breath as she looked at the eyes of Amélie. Lena could see some fear coming through those eyes as Amélie put up a pointless struggle against her bonds. In the video she heard what sounded like a door opening and the footsteps of several individuals and the sound of rolling wheels as 3 people made their way into the room Amélie was in. One of the 3 looked as if he just came out of a board meeting dressed in a suit that was probably worth more than most people's yearly income. An other one was pushing a cart filled with shiny surgical equipment.

Lena could see Amélie try and move her head around to look at whoever had entered the room. She saw the fear in her eyes only grow as she struggled to try and see the people in the room with her. The man in the business suit moved around to the table until he was clearly in Amélies view.

“S'il vous plait, laissez-moi partir” The fear in Amélies voice clearly coming through.

The man stared down are her for all of a second before lifting his hand and bringing it back down Amélies abdomen hard enough to completely empty air out of her lungs. Lena could do nothing but clench her fist harder than before as she watched Amélie cough and wheeze and struggle even harder against her bonds as she attempted to get air back into her lungs. Logically she knew this was a recording and there was nothing she could do about it, but she still wanted to do something.

“I don’t speak French and I know you know enough English to talk fluently, so while I’m here you’re only going to speak in English.”

Amélie wheezing one last time before finally getting enough air to talk “Please, let me go. I’ve done nothing to you.”

“Ah you see Miss Lacroix you are simply guilty by association if it wasn’t for who you choose to marry we would have never come after you.”

“Gérard? What does he have to do with anything”

“Oh he never told you what he actually did for a living? He never told you he was one of Overwatch’s top agents? Not once?”

“He was never home, even when was home, we hardly talked I had ballet, he had...whatever he was doing. We only married to keep our families unaware of us.”

“Well, regardless, it doesn’t matter since our little experiment with you worked out so well on you well, he’s no longer a thorn in Talon’s side.” 

“What?” Amélie’s eyes going wider as she realized the implication of what he was saying the heart monitor beeping faster than before. “Qu'avez-vous fait à Gérard!” Amélie began struggling against her bonds again until the man struck her again knocking the wind out of her for a second time.

“I told you. When i’m here, you will only speak English.” 

Amélie closed her eyes and attempted to keep the tears pooling in her eyes from falling as she tried to get her breath back. She had kept her eyes closed, until she felt the man's fingers force them open. He kept his fingers where they were, keeping her from closing her eyes. She looked at him with as much unadulterated hate she could muster, as he slowly leaned in with a sly smirk on his face to get a better look at her “You know, you have beautiful blue ey…” 

He wasn’t able to finish that last word as Amélie spat up at him hitting him on the side of his face. He recoiled back a bit before back handing Amélie across her left cheek. Amelies head barely moving thanks to the restraints.

“Originally this next bit was supposed to be a lot easier for you, but we’ll use this time to teach you. That if you cooperate things will go a lot smoother for you.” He wiped the spit away from his cheek as he let out a small chuckle and made his way out of frame.

Lena could still hear Athena talking in the background. She wasn’t sure what Athena was saying she was still too focused on what was going on in the recording.

“Begin the operation without any anesthesia” The man said off screen. A moment later the other two people went to either side of Amélie. Lena could hear the heart monitor going faster than before, as she watched the two surgeons install an eye speculum keeping her eye open like the man’s finger before. Amélie realized what was about to happen to her and tried to move away and get free of her bonds. 

“Don’t struggle we don’t want to damage the muscles around your eye anymore than we already will” 

“No, please don’t do this.” Amélies voice thick with fear.

“Sorry lady, but we all have things we can’t escape from. If you're lucky the pain will be enough to knock you out, if not well maybe you should beg god for forgiveness for whatever you did that brought this upon you.” The surgeon said as he brought a small metallic hook and a pair of scissors closer to her eye. 

Amélies breathing quickened with each second. “If there is a god. He will have to beg for my forgiveness”

Amélie let out the most inhuman scream Lena ever had the displeasure of hearing as the surgeon stuck the hook behind Amélies eye and around the muscle pulling it, and her eye partly out of the socket. Amélies cries of pain continued as she began thrashing and moving her head what little it could in an attempt to get away from the pain. 

The hook slipped and the surgeon had to attempt again. It took him a few tries, the pain of the operation making Amélie move her head and shake the whole operating table only prolonging her pain. Lena finally looked away when the muscle surgeon had been trying to get, decided it had enough and snapped from amount of times the hook slowly cut into it.

Lena covered her mouth as tried to stop herself emptying her stomach for a second time. She may have looked away from the screen but she could still hear what was going on. She could hear Amélie screaming that inhuman scream and writhing in pain. She could hear a faint wet suction sound she could only assume was from try to get rid of the blood that was pooling around the eye.

It was a few moments later when screaming stopped. Lena hoped Amélie had finally passed out from the pain. She still couldn’t bring herself to look back at the screen. She could hear the surgeon's going on with the operation. She could still hear them suctioning away the blood, she could hear the sound of metal clinking against metal as they swapped one bloody tool out for an other. She heard what sounded like scissors cutting through cloth, she knew it was actually the sound of scissors cutting away at the meat of what was left Amélies blue eye now crimson with all the damage done to it. Finally she heard of the sound of something soft and wet hitting a thin metal pan. Lena didn’t want to even think of what that was.

“Do the other eye when she wakes up” Lena still didn’t look at screen as she heard the 3 men in the room take their leave. She just stared straight ahead at a point on the wall and brought her hand up to her mouth and bit into the bottom of her pinky and the top of her ring finger. A nervous habit she’s had for as long as she could remember. She bit down harder in an attempt to feel through her glove. She was fairly sure Athena was still trying to get her attention, but she just ignored her.

“S'il vous plaît” The weak sound of Amélies voice finally enough to bring Lena out of her trance. She looked back at the screen. She saw left half of Amélies face stained crimson from her drying blood. The eye socket a brutalized mess of red and torn flesh now void of beautiful blue eye that was supposed to be there. She could barely see the blue in the half closed right eye. As a blood soaked tear fell down her left cheek, she faintly heard the sound Amélies meek voice before her eye closed all the way and she fell once more into unconsciousness.

“ S'il vous plaît,..quelqu'un...me sauve”

“Agent Oxton!”

Now she could hear Athena loud and clear, but she still didn’t respond. Her attention now moved back to the live feed of Amélie. Another person now in the room with her. Lena may not be able to see his face, but she could tell it was the same man from the video. Amélie was still sitting on the floor pulling her knees to her chest. The man towering over Amélie with his hands in his pockets as he talked down to her. 

“How are the new eyes treating you?”

“....”

“Oh wait that’s right! Your neural implants are installed so you haven’t had a chance to use them yet haven’t you?”

“....”

“Amazing that the technology of this day and age can let’s us turn off parts of the brain isn’t it?”

“....”

“What? Did someone turn off your voice too or are you just being stubborn?”

“....”

“Well, It doesn't matter. We have big plans for you. Who knows maybe you’ll even learn to enjoy what we have in store for you” With that he left the room leaving Amélie alone in the chamber again.

“Did you find where they’re keeping her, Athena?” Lena’s words came out calmly, she was anything but calm. She was seething with rage. Her hands were shaking. She had never been filled with so much hate for a single man before.

“She is still being held in the Anechoic Chamber. However she is scheduled to be moved to surgery for an experiment involving implants around her heart. You will have to make your way back to the other side of the base to the medical center to get to her.”

Lena, now having a direction of where to go. Made her way out the lab, she didn’t care about the people in lab coats giving her sideways looks wondering what this person that clearly didn’t belong was doing. She didn’t care that she walked through a security checkpoint setting off the alarms, or when a guard manning the checkpoint told her to stop and grabbed her by the shoulder. She simply blinked behind the man, threw the hardest left hook she could to his kidney followed by a right hook to the other kidney. She followed it with a swift kick to side of the knee dislocating it, leaving the guard to support himself with only one leg. He cried out both in surprise and pain, but was quickly silenced by Lenas right cross to the head.

She felt and heard the sickening sound of his nose crunch under her fist and the cartilage collapsed into his nasal cavity from the force of the hit. He collapsed onto the floor unmoving. Lena didn’t know if he was just unconscious or if she just killed the man with her bare hands. She looked up from the body, and saw another guard looking at her in both shock and fear at what he had just witnessed. The guard could see the rage on her face and Lena was seeing red. 

Once the second guard recovered from the momentary shock of witnessing his friend get taken out by someone half his size. The second guard began to reached for his pistol. Lena was already making a move to get to him before he was anywhere close to getting the weapon. She managed 3 steps before she realized the red she was seeing wasn’t from blood like rage she was experiencing.

Her vision was definitely getting redder. Her head felt congested and one of the worst headaches she’s ever experienced was settling in. She started to feel lighter and swore she could feel her stomach work it’s way up to her throat as she notice the world start to stretch and a red tunnel took over her vision. In the back of her mind she knew what must be happening, she also knew from her training that there was nothing she could do to make what was to come any easier on her body. She would simply have to endure. The pressure that was building up around her skull from the increased blood flow was rapidly becoming painful. She clenched her jaw in an attempt to stave off the pain, but it didn’t seem to help. She wasn’t sure how long she was in that red tunnel and she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to remain conscious for much longer.

She felt a bit of weight start to come back to her body as her stomach felt like it was going back down to its normal spot. The world was getting back its normal color back, and she finally made her way out of that red tunnel. She closed her eyes as she collapsed down to her knees and clutched her head in between her hands as she took rapid deep breaths. Tears were flowing out of her eyes as she tried to endure the the pressure and lingering pain around her head.

“subconjunctival hemorrhage detected in the left eye”

More tears fell as Lena finally opened her eyes and took in the ruined world around her once more. She was in the same spot she was before, but she couldn’t have been further than where she wanted to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right well that's the end of that. Thank you for making it this far! I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter overall. I did some research for the torture scene and I almost threw up watch how the actual surgery goes. I like to think I have a strong stomach, but I don't know about you but stuff involving the eye always bothers me. Originally the torture scene was supposed to be a lot different but I decided 2000 words on that scene alone was a little much. Sorry If the french is wrong, If anyone wants to correct me on how its supposed to be let me know.
> 
> A big thank you to [myinnerexperiences](http://myinnerexperiences.tumblr.com/) for beta reading this
> 
> Here's [my tumbler](https://awastelandstudent.tumblr.com/) there's nothing there right now but if you want to message about the story feel free.
> 
> Please comment and review. Let me know what you think and how can I improve!
> 
> Translations:  
> “S'il vous plait, laissez-moi partir”="Please, let me go"  
> “Qu'avez-vous fait à Gérard!”="What did you do to Gerard?"  
> “S'il vous plaît”="Please"  
> “ S'il vous plaît,..quelqu'un...me sauve”="Please, .. someone ... save me"


End file.
